His voice seemed to hold a distinct note ofâ¦anger.
Anger. The small elusive thread of recognition that had tugged at her memory before it suddenly became a thick cord of garroting strength, whipping tightly around her, paralyzing her vocal cords, making her shake with shock, the cold sweat of fear springing from her pores.
No. It was impossible. It just couldnât be. She was imagining things. That voice, Gideonâs voice was notâ¦.
She was still clutching the receiver, even though the line had gone dead. She was com pletely alone in the empty room, only the echo of Gideonâs voice to remind herâ¦. Just as, all those years ago, she had also only been left with the echo of a bitterly angry and contemptuous male voiceâ¦.
was constantly in trouble in school because of her inability to stop daydreamingâespecially during French lessons. In her teens, she was an avid romance reader, although it didnât occur to her to try writing one herself until she was older. âMy first half-dozen attempts ended up ingloriously,â she remembers, âbut I persevered, and one manuscript was finished.â She plucked up the courage to send it to a publisher, convinced her book would be rejected. It wasnât, and the rest is history! Penny is married and lives in Cheshire.
Penny Jordanâs striking mainstream novel Power Play quickly became a New York Times bestseller. She followed that success with Silver, The Hidden Years, Lingering Shadows, For Better For Worse and Cruel Legacy.
âWomen everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordanâs characters.â
âPublishers Weekly on For Better For Worse
Donât miss Pennyâs latest blockbuster, Power Games, available mid-1996.
COURAGE just managed to stop herself making the betrayingly nervous gesture of smoothing down the skirt of her suitâa copy of a Chanel design she had had made up in Hong Kong for a tenth of the cost of the originalânot that there was anyone else in the room to witness any potential breach in her composure. She was, it seemed, the final candidate to be interviewed for the post of household comptroller to the millionaire businessman Gideon Reynolds.
In normal circumstances she would not have been anything like this nervous; she had faced far stiffer interviews than this one in her career. But she had never wanted a jobâany jobâas desperately as she did this one. And it made no difference reminding herself that she was qualified for itâtoo well-qualified in many ways. The talents and training of an award-winning management executive of a chain of prestige European conference-centre hotels did not transfer very well to the job opportunities of a sleepy Dorset market town.
She had spent the last week working part-time stacking the shelves at a local supermarket and very glad of the money she had earned there she had been, as well.
The trouble was that the hotel trade, even at her relatively high level, did not pay particularly well. In the past that had not mattered; in the past her love of her work and the perks that went with itâfree travel, the opportunity to meet new people, rent-free accommodationâhad more than compensated for her smallish salary, but then in the past she had not had to worry about supporting anyone other than herself. In the past she had not had hanging over her the fact that her darling, beloved grandmother was soon going to be desperately in need of her help, not just financially but potentially physically as well.
Her employers had been very understanding, allowing her to terminate her employment with them without any noticeâtrust Gran not to let her know what was going on, not to want to worry her. It had been her GPâan old family friendâwho had got in touch with Courage privately. Not even Gran knew the real extent of the damage to her heart and the frailty of her health.
âBut there must be something you can do,â Courage had frantically protested to her grandmotherâs doctor, her body taut with shock and fear.
âYes. We can operate to replace the damaged tissue, but the waiting-list for that kind of operation is at least two years. Your grandmother is a very strong woman, but she is in her sixties. Her condition is extremely severe, and another two yearsâ¦â
Courage bit her lip. She couldnât bear the thought of losing her granâor of seeing her in pain, suffering⦠Not Gran, who had always been so full of energy and optimism, who had been the steadfast rock of her own life, holding her close and safe, giving her the gift of self-worth, of knowing how much she was loved at a time whenâ¦
âWhat do you mean youâve come home?â her grand-mother had demanded when she had arrived unannounced. âWhat about your workâyour career?â
âOh, thatâs all right,â Courage had fibbed breezily, fingers crossed behind her back. âI had quite a bit of leave owing to me, and to be honest with you, Gran, I was already thinking about taking a break, giving myself some thinking time to evaluate where Iâm going and what I want. The company have offered me the job of running their new Hong Kong conference centre andâ¦â